How Trump’s Cabinet Picks Are Preparing for Their Confirmation Hearings

As each of Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks were announced over the past several months, they were greeted with varying degrees of outrage: an oil C.E.O. with ties to Russia for Secretary of State? A Goldman Sachs partner to oversee the Treasury? How many billionaires, again? This week, these nominees, several of whom have no experience in public service, must prove to Congress that they’re prepared for the job, and the Trump team, hoping desperately to avoid being embarrassed before the president-elect takes the oath of office, has spared no expense in prepping—even if it means taking a few ethical shortcuts along the way.

Over the past several weeks, Politico reports, separate teams have been holding mock congressional hearings for the candidates, locking them in rooms for hours to grill them with questions they expect to be asked during the hearing, simulating every variable down to the harsh lights under which they’ll sit. The exercise is known as a “murder board” in D.C. public relations and lobbying circles, normally to prep witnesses—particularly those inexperienced with congressional hearings—expected to undergo a grueling, high-stakes round of political theater without losing their dignity in front of congressional representatives looking to excoriate them in public.

With the Democrats declaring war on some of Trump’s nominees, and Exxon-Mobil C.E.O. and would-be State Secretary Rex Tillersonunnerving Republicans for his coziness with Vladimir Putin, Trump’s transition team has been prepping their most controversial picks for weeks about the minutiae of policy—a monumental task, given the fact that several of Trump’s nominees have no government experience.

The drills include the expected topics—their questioners’ pet causes, the mechanics of the actual department they’ll be heading—as well as, among other things, the price of milk—as Politico observes, ostensibly so they aren’t cast as out of touch with the American people. The biggest obstacle, however, is the man who nominated them. Democrats have signaled that they will attempt to corner the nominees on some of Trump’s most controversial statements, a minefield of damning tweets difficult to escape. “Everything is on the table,” a transition official told Politico.

The Senate Republicans have rushed these nominees through to the hearings without having completed all the background checks normally required before a hearing. This has inevitably set up a partisan war, with the Democrats pushing for ethical due diligence, and Republicans accusing them of obstruction. “Holding up confirmations just for delay’s sake is irresponsible and it is dangerous,” Senator John Cornyn told the Times, saying that filling these positions as quickly as possible was an issue of national security. Time well spent, indeed.

Jeff Bezos: The C.E.O. of e-commerce and delivery giant Amazon and the owner of The Washington Post has already sparred with Trump. But Trump could come after Bezos for anti-trust issues, too: Trump is on the record as saying Amazon “is controlling so much of what they are doing.” The fact that The Washington Post has been reporting on Trump, often critically, probably does not endear Bezos to Trump, either.

Photo: From Rex/Shutterstock.

Tim Cook: Trump has repeatedly criticized Apple for making its products overseas, and has called on the company to “start building their damn computers and things” in America. Cook must also contend with tariffs that will inevitably arise if Trump gets the U.S. into a trade war with China. And then there’s the fact that Trump denounced Apple in 2016 for refusing a court order to cooperate with an F.B.I. request to unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack last year.

Photo: By Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

Jack Dorsey: Twitter, already a tech company struggling with employee retention and a falling stock price, has been forced to contend with its role in handing Trump a megaphone to spout his opinions, whether those include attacking a union leader or merely suggesting the U.S. stock up on nuclear arms. Dorsey was also excluded by Trump from the tech summit at Trump Tower in December, reportedly as retribution for not allowing the Trump team to use an emoji-fied version of the #CrookedHillary hashtag. Sad!

Photo: By Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

Mark Zuckerberg: Trump’s favorite golden boy in Silicon Valley, Peter Thiel, is both an early Facebook investor and serves on Facebook’s board, which bodes well for the company’s ties to the president-elect. But Trump could also change immigration laws in a way that affects Facebook’s ability to hire highly skilled employees. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg and others in the tech community signed onto a brief submitted to the Supreme Court in favor of Obama’s executive actions, arguing that more immigration benefits the tech industry and the country. Trump appears to disagree.

Photo: From Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Marc Lore (Jet.com): E-commerce companies like Jet.com could become victims of a Chinese trade war. Trump has threatened to add tariffs of 45 percent of Chinese exports. “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they're doing,” he told supporters earlier in 2016. Trump’s proposed solution could make foreign-made goods—which comprises the bulk of e-commerce products—vastly more expensive.

Photo: From Rex/Shutterstock.

Josh Kushner: Jared Kushner’s brother, Josh, runs a healthcare start-up in New York called Oscar Health—which just so happens to be built on the back of the Obamacare exchanges that Trump, Jared’s father-in-law, has threatened to destroy. The company, which is reportedly bleeding money, is now pivoting its business model to focus on narrow networks and roll-out plans to small and large businesses, moving away from plans connected to the Affordable Care Act.

Photo: By Patrick McMullan/Getty Images.

Elon Musk: Though Musk and Trump ally Peter Thiel are close—they helped co-found PayPal together, and made their respective first millions of dollars off of it—two of Musk’s companies may be in a precarious situation under a Trump administration. Shareholders in both SolarCity and Tesla Motors now must consider what Trump could do to federal clean-energy tax credits and subsidies, which both companies currently receive. Current electric-car and solar-energy subsidies will expire under Trump’s tenure, and aren’t likely to be renewed.

Photo: From Rex/Shutterstock.

Jeff Bezos: The C.E.O. of e-commerce and delivery giant Amazon and the owner of The Washington Post has already sparred with Trump. But Trump could come after Bezos for anti-trust issues, too: Trump is on the record as saying Amazon “is controlling so much of what they are doing.” The fact that The Washington Post has been reporting on Trump, often critically, probably does not endear Bezos to Trump, either.

From Rex/Shutterstock.

Tim Cook: Trump has repeatedly criticized Apple for making its products overseas, and has called on the company to “start building their damn computers and things” in America. Cook must also contend with tariffs that will inevitably arise if Trump gets the U.S. into a trade war with China. And then there’s the fact that Trump denounced Apple in 2016 for refusing a court order to cooperate with an F.B.I. request to unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack last year.

By Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

Jack Dorsey: Twitter, already a tech company struggling with employee retention and a falling stock price, has been forced to contend with its role in handing Trump a megaphone to spout his opinions, whether those include attacking a union leader or merely suggesting the U.S. stock up on nuclear arms. Dorsey was also excluded by Trump from the tech summit at Trump Tower in December, reportedly as retribution for not allowing the Trump team to use an emoji-fied version of the #CrookedHillary hashtag. Sad!

By Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

Mark Zuckerberg: Trump’s favorite golden boy in Silicon Valley, Peter Thiel, is both an early Facebook investor and serves on Facebook’s board, which bodes well for the company’s ties to the president-elect. But Trump could also change immigration laws in a way that affects Facebook’s ability to hire highly skilled employees. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg and others in the tech community signed onto a brief submitted to the Supreme Court in favor of Obama’s executive actions, arguing that more immigration benefits the tech industry and the country. Trump appears to disagree.

From Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Marc Lore (Jet.com): E-commerce companies like Jet.com could become victims of a Chinese trade war. Trump has threatened to add tariffs of 45 percent of Chinese exports. “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they're doing,” he told supporters earlier in 2016. Trump’s proposed solution could make foreign-made goods—which comprises the bulk of e-commerce products—vastly more expensive.

From Rex/Shutterstock.

Josh Kushner: Jared Kushner’s brother, Josh, runs a healthcare start-up in New York called Oscar Health—which just so happens to be built on the back of the Obamacare exchanges that Trump, Jared’s father-in-law, has threatened to destroy. The company, which is reportedly bleeding money, is now pivoting its business model to focus on narrow networks and roll-out plans to small and large businesses, moving away from plans connected to the Affordable Care Act.

By Patrick McMullan/Getty Images.

Elon Musk: Though Musk and Trump ally Peter Thiel are close—they helped co-found PayPal together, and made their respective first millions of dollars off of it—two of Musk’s companies may be in a precarious situation under a Trump administration. Shareholders in both SolarCity and Tesla Motors now must consider what Trump could do to federal clean-energy tax credits and subsidies, which both companies currently receive. Current electric-car and solar-energy subsidies will expire under Trump’s tenure, and aren’t likely to be renewed.